Thursday, May 6, 2010

Another Wrongly Convicted Man Goes Free After 29 Years!

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting on the Cleveland man freed after 29 years in prison. Yesterday a Cuyahoga County judge freed Ray Towler after DNA evidence proved Towler was not the rapist of an 11 year old girl three decades earlier. The Judge, Eileen A. Gallagher, descended from the bench and with tears streaming down her face embraced Mr. Towler who smiled and said he was walking out into "the light."

Look, Ray Towler wasn't on death row in Ohio, but do we need further evidence of why capital punishment is such a bad idea? Until recent decades in Georgia and throughout the south, ( at least, until Corker v. Ga. in 1977), criminal defendants were executed for rape. Want to guess how many innocent men, particularly black men went to their deaths at the hands of a vengeful society intent on stamping out the crime of rape?

2 comments:

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I worked on the Mississippi Innocence Project. I once thought capital punishment was a fine idea, then changed my mind when I saw how the system really works. Now I would rather lose a job than have anything to do with it.

It's barbaric, there's no valid penological reason for it, it's expensive, and innocent people have and will face execution. How a "Christian" society tolerates it is beyond me.

If you haven't seen the New Yorker article on Cameron Todd Willingham, check it out. Made my blood boil.